Ford Escort

A four-cylinder car, which I believe is British in origin. They have a great reputation as rally cars, being highly manouverable. My first, and still favourite car was a green 1974 Escort panelvan. The panel van version is incredible. It has heaps of storage space in the back, yet you can still get the thing in a compact parking spot easily. This made the model popular amongst couriers and delivery people. Mine had a cargo cage for easy packing, and protection of the driver. I used to use it for mobile DJing - stack the speakers, amps and technics turntables in the back, and zip about town. Unfortunately, that car suffered from a wombat attack.

A four cylinder automobile model, manufactured by Ford Motor Company.

I have owned two in my life, one of which I loved, and was made in 1990 and got stolen right in front of my house on a Sunday evening; the other is a 1989 model, which smokes like hell but runs great. My daughter and I bought this lovely car together, each putting down $450 for it. She has yet to drive it, as she doesn't have a license yet (a year after buying the car).

Now, to me, the best thing about this car, besides the bargain basement price, are the army men and the bumper stickers. The army men are stuck on the ceiling of the car with Superglue and amaze and astound our friends. They seem to be very good at holding off car thiefs, so far.

My daughter had a bag of stickers that she had been saving up for a year. Some of them include:
My dogs butt stinks;
Ready to Snap;
club Orpheus
and a long one that says, in the form of a prayer,
blah blah blah I'm going to pound your ass blah blah blah and show no mercy blah blah blah amen.
In response to my Friends don't let friends eat meat bumper sticker brazenly plastered on my other car the Escort wants to know If we aren't supposed to eat them, why are animals made out of meat? My favorite
- Not all who wander are lost - J.R.R. Tolkien.
And of course there are a couple of the requisite band stickers, most of which came from me:
All, The Blasting Room, Hole, Self, NIN.

The Ford Escort was, from 1968 until 1999, consistently the most popular car in Britain. It was a four / five-seater family car, originally a saloon and later on a hatchback (although a saloon version was produced as the 'Orion'). The Escort was launched as the replacement for the Ford Anglia, and was in turn replaced by the Ford Focus in 1998, although the latter co-existed with the Escort for a year.

There were four distinct version of the Escort - the first two (1968-1980) were very similar, conventional saloons (albeit rear-wheel drive, and thus perfect for doing doughnuts in the local car park), the third (1980-1990, with a facelift in 1985) introduced front-wheel drive and was an angular hatchback, the fourth (1990-1999) was a crashingly dull, amorphous blob which lagged way behind the competition (notably its constant arch-enemy, the Vauxhall Astra) until extensive upgrades and refinements in the early-90s gave it parity.

Although the road-going Escort was generally extremely dull (but 'solid'; the Escort had a certain proletariat charm - it was cheap, it worked, it was respectable enough and parts were cheap), the first two Escort models had a parallel career as the most successful rally cars in the world, ever, dominating the rally scene throughout the 1970s. By the 80s, the Ford Sierra became Ford's main competition car, with go-faster roadgoing versions of the Escort moving to the forefront (usually with RS in the name, often painted gold). Most notorious was the XR3i, a car built with Essex in mind. Almost always white, the XR3i came close to being the ultimate mid-80s boy racer car. It wasn't particularly fast, or any good, and compared to a Volkswagen Gold GTi it was lamentable. But it was cheap. And it had an 'X' in the name, something of which the Golf could not boast.

But there was a genuinely ferocious Escort. From 1992 to 1996, the Ford Escort Cosworth RS - the 'Cossie' - ruled its roost. A four-wheel-drive, turbocharged Escort with a massive spoiler mounted at the top of its hatchback, it became the ultimate Escort derivation for car enthusiasts and getaway drivers alike. Not quite as notorious as the Ford Sierra Cosworth, the Escort Cosworth was killed off by EU noise regulations, crippling insurance bills and the unsavory attention it attracted from joyriders and tea leaves. Nowadays the same people own Subaru Impreza Turbos, although the Cosworth still has cachet.

Rather like the Ford Cortina, the Escort is likely to become quite rare in the years to come, as it is not the kind of car that people preserve. Escorts are driven until the cost of repairs outweighs the value of the car, at which point they are abandoned. Neither the Mk1 nor Mk2 versions are seen on the roads anymore, rust having claimed most; the Mk3 must have been made of tougher steel, as it is still quite common, and popular as a 'first car' for people who want something bigger than a supermini.